Discussion

Swiss diamond?

In another post on this forum, someone has spoken very favorably about Swiss Diamond non-stick cookware. I personally have never been thrilled with non-stick and use it solely for eggs/omelets. I have never found that foods brown or crisp up properly on non-stick therefore I reserve its use for eggs. Another poster swears by Swiss Diamond and says that foods brown well in it, and apparently he/she loves it for general cookings. Anyone out there who can comment further about this non-stick? Obviously a non-stick that is dishwasher safe, impervious to damage by metal spatulas, guaranteed forever, and browns as well as other uncoated pans, would be wonderful. Is Swiss Diamond this product?

In my book, Swiss Diamond is the best cookware. I bought my first piece about 6 years ago--a 4 qt saute pan. Most days, I use it for every meal, probably 1,000 times/year. It's still non-stick, it still cleans up in just a few seconds (I only put it in the DW occasionally), and it cooks excellently. I use it in the oven as a small roasting pan as well as on the stovetop.

I now have the 8-inch and 11-inch skillets, a grill pan, and the wok (for which I paid full price!). Cook's Wares has the 12.5 inch covered skillet on sale right now, and I'm really thinking about buying that.

Swiss Diamond is all about hype. Yes, maybe they're decent non-stick cookware, but their claims and marketing materials make me cringe.From their FAQ:

-"Diamonds have the best thermal conductivity of all materials" - TRUE, and if your pan was made of solid diamond it would actually matter. However since the diamond powder is merely scattered through the surface coating, the conductivity is not relevant - read: HYPE.

-"NO! The Swiss Diamond coating does not contain any Teflon" - TRUE, but wait a second!-"Do Swiss Diamond products contain “PTFE”? YES!" Teflon(R) *IS* PTFE, made by DuPont. PTFE made by DuPont is called Teflon, PTFE made by anyone else is called PTFE. Teflon is a brand name, just like Aspirin. Like saying "Does it contain Vaseline? No, it only contains pure petroleum jelly. Complete, total HYPE, which to me screams 'hey, we think you're stupid'.

Then you get things like "where are your diamonds mined?" - which is totally misleading because their diamonds *aren't* mined, they're manufactured, industrial quality powder. Buzzwords like 'nano-composite'. Did you know that most white paint qualifies as a nano-composite? "Hey, you painted the walls! ... No, I applied a titanium dioxide nano-composite material to my walls!". Bah.

"The secret to our advanced cooking technology is the inclusion of up to 200,000 diamond crystals that reinforce the composite non-stick surface." Um.. sounds like a lot, right? The 11 x 17 double burner griddle has about 120,000 square millimeters of surface area. So 'up to 200,000 diamond crystals' means you get less than two nano-sized diamond crystals per square millimeter. "NANO is simply a way of measuring very small things. Nano technology builds products atom by atom and refers to materials one-billionths ofa [sic] meter in size". Yeah, so that means you could fit 1 million diamonds in a square millimeter if each diamond was 1000 nanometers in diameter. Getting the picture yet? It's like having two dandelions in an acre of grass.

So.. in my opinion... HYPE, HYPE and more HYPE apparently to justify the *huge* price tags on their cookware.

On the plus side, their stuff *is* made with decently thick aluminum, but then again so is a lot of other aluminum cookware. Cookware that can be had in a non-stick interior that costs 1/4 what Swiss Diamond costs. It's the old "charge quadruple, and the interest on the profit margin will pay for a lifetime of warranty replacements" marketing gimmick, I think.

I bought mine simply because I needed a pan of that size, and it was the only one I could find at that time. I like the fact that I can use metal utensils on it, which I find much more effective than many plastic ones. When I dropped it and broke the handle, they sent me a new one right away, at no charge to me even though it was my fault and I told them that. So far, it's held up much better than "regular" Teflon coated pans that I have, and I'm hoping that it's the last non-stick pan I buy. In response to the OP's earlier query, yes, meat browns very nicely in it. Also, I believe it can withstand heat of 500 degrees, which has been useful for me as well, as it can go from the stove top into the oven.

Unlike most non-stick pans that I've had, the Swiss Diamond is heavy, and has the heft of a higher quality, IMO, pan. Great domed clear lid too.

To all of you that claim it is just hype, I ask simply, have you tried them and if so, for how long?

The two pans I used in the post, I still use today. While I admit they don't perform quite as well as the did when they were new, they are fantastic pans. They heat evenly, brown nicely and inspite of the fact that I am very hard on them and scour them with a stainless steel scrubber (mercilessly) and treat them as I would any stainless steel pan, I can say they have stood up better than any other coated pan I have ever used and there is no sign of the coating coming off.

It is important to note that my pans have a very different handle than the typical SwissDiamond pans and I am using both the Swiss Diamond finish pan and the Swiss nanopan finishes.

After three and a half years, I can say they are worth the money and I am very happy with them and no non-stick pan I have ever used in a professional kitchen even holds a candle to these pans.

I do not work for the company and I do not have any financial interest in their sales. It is just a good product.

I have noticed most of the pictures are gone from the original post. I think eGullet changed their format and it won't link to outside sources anymore. Here are some of the original pictures of the pan: